


following the clouds

by VinculumStellarum



Category: Pop'n Music (Game)
Genre: Gen, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:47:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27278962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VinculumStellarum/pseuds/VinculumStellarum
Summary: Today, you stood alone in front of the railroad crossing, hoping to escape the awful emotions you'd been dealing with once and for all.
Kudos: 6





	following the clouds

**Author's Note:**

> TW FOR SUICIDAL THOUGHTS AND SUICIDE CONTEMPLATION IN THE FIC //
> 
> Hey guys. Before I get too far into this opening, I just wanna make it clear that I'm fine, because I feel like if I don't say that someone might start worrying. Please don't worry about me.
> 
> I'm... honestly not entirely sure why I wrote this, to be honest. Recently, I've been listening a lot to Tadoru Kimi Wo Koete (the Usaneko murakumo MZD song, I'll call it Mura2mo from here) and the cosMo@BousouP IIDX Copula song, I don't know the name. For reasons I don't really know, but feel might be a product of my mental health struggles of recent, last night when I was listening to those two songs at the park, there were sort of... not exactly pleasant fictional scenarios that kept playing out in my head. Purely fictional, but still scenarios I don't think would normally come to mind listening to music like that. That's sort of where this fic comes from, is the AMV type thing that kept playing at the end of Mura2mo in my head.
> 
> I'd already drawn some art about Mura2mo (it's [ here](https://i.imgur.com/tJnX9Ka.png), but TW for implied suicide/death), but something about those fictional scenarios and... my emotions? maybe? compelled me to sit down and write this. I honestly cried a little bit starting this fic; it felt deeper than stuff I'd usually write and almost personal, I guess. Saying that kind of makes me feel like I'm fishing for attention, to be honest. It might sound worse than it actually is, and feels like the type of topic I shouldn't write about. I don't mean to guilt trip or anything of that sort though, please don't think that's my intent.
> 
> I'd be lying if I said that some of this wasn't pulled from my own feelings and thought processes, but the vast majority of this fic is fictional. I'm a little hesitant to post this because I'm worried that I may have written something insensitively or tastelessly, but I guess I won't know otherwise if I don't post it, huh... If I have done something wrong, please respectfully let me know.
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy this fic, even if it's not the kind of thing you'd typically say one might enjoy.

Today, you stood on that same gravel path once again, the loose rocks poking underneath your flimsy shoe soles as you lazily shuffled across. It was a feeling you were used to at this point, with all the walking you did; sometimes, you liked to go out barefoot and step on as many different textures as you could just to feel something different. It usually wasn’t more than a dull pressing feeling against your feet, but it was a nice change of pace from the indescribable dreadful emotions you mostly had elsewise, unable to enjoy anything or feel anything besides a lingering sorrow. It grounded you.

Today, unlike other days, you were alone. Your shadow usually tagged along (as if a shadow could stray, but Hatena was a sentient entity), and you liked to talk about little things that happened in your day, things that gave you a reason to smile and keep marching into the next. Even if it didn’t feel genuine, or if it only lasted a little while, those little moments made you feel like there was still hope. Normally, you wanted them to be there with you, but things felt different today. You asked Hatena to look after the kid for a while. Just enough time, you thought.

You weren’t sure what had you like this, or how long you’d really been feeling this way; when you happened to be God himself, you weren’t really one to keep track of the passage of time, or what day it even was, save for any holidays or anything that was significant to your husband or the kid. You kind of just… passed through every single day, disconnected from most of everything around you. It wasn’t like there was too much structure to your life, since you didn’t need to survive like everyone else did, but it sometimes left you feeling aimless, and these days, everything felt monotonous. Even performing at the studio felt lifeless sometimes, and that was your passion (or so it used to be). It felt harder to compose. When you were used to making something every day, regardless of its length or how polished it was, you struggled to come up with much recently.

Today, as always, you stood behind the railroad crossing, eyeing the wooden tracks as you waited for the familiar warnings to sound. When you went for walks, you usually changed your path every single time, winding through playgrounds, fields, even other cities sometimes, but most of the time, you always ended up here. You would often talk with Hatena about life as a whole, not that you understood what it meant to “live” in the typical sense very well, but you liked to share your thoughts with one another as the sun set, and as trains occasionally whizzed by. By now, you knew exactly when they were scheduled to pass through, and you liked to time your walks so that you got to see them at least once during your outing. It was nice that they still chugged along through your side of things while both your husband and the kid worked, in the dead of night.

It was precisely why you’d asked to walk alone today.

It felt like there was so much going through your mind, but it was hard to sort through it all, and harder when gusts of cold air kept howling by, chilling you. You wished you’d gone out in more than a short-sleeved jacket and shorts, but you reasoned it shouldn’t have mattered today. You hadn’t exactly planned on ever dealing with this again—or anything, for that matter. Clothing choice was the least of your worries. Pacing at what felt like a thousand miles an hour, your mind just wouldn’t shut up, jumping from topic to topic like an excited child.

You always knew who might replace you in the off chance anything happened, was that a good place to start? You felt bad even thinking about having to throw all your duties onto another. Was your job something that a mortal could handle? It was such a big responsibility, being God, and the knowledge and power that came with it you were sure would break a poor soul’s mind. You were used to it, since you’d lived like that all your life, but you knew that same ability to process and cope with all that wouldn’t come easy, if at all, for most others. Your ideal replacement was already quite familiar with you and Hatena, and you’d taken him to the stars for dates a few nights—he was your husband, after all—so he had more experience than most with your current powers, but you still wondered if it wasn’t a better idea to grant full godship to your shadow and allow them to make the correct judgement. You weren’t thinking very rationally, anyways, where they might. But they probably wouldn’t be able to think very rationally after finding you, too.

And when you thought about it, you had a replacement god in mind, but you hadn’t let anyone know what you were planning, did you? You often thought about who you might spread the news of your disappearance to first these days, but in all that thinking, you never wrote anything to start the chain. Of course, Hatena could easily teleport back to you and discover the news, but everyone deserved closure, didn’t they? In your position, you almost felt an obligation to explain how you felt and why it led you to this.

You wondered how you were even going to deliver a note; if you left it anywhere but on you, someone could find it and try to stop you, and you didn’t like that possibility. It was unfair to burden anyone else with your problems, especially with who you were. You knew how much your husband would try to intervene, too; he loved you and the kid more than anyone. The thought of him running after you and holding you back, tears in his eyes, begging you not to step into the tracks made you want to cry, too. You couldn’t do that to him. You wouldn’t be able to live with that.

What about the kid? He depended on you, and he loved you a whole lot too. You’d taken him in what seemed forever ago after he was on the brink of homelessness, and you two were like father and son. You frequently shared memes and played games with each other, and you hoped he would someday be able to make a name for himself as a talented DJ, as he dreamed to be. You couldn’t bear to imagine how being gone would impact him and his life.

Would they manage okay if you were gone?

Another cold breeze snapped you out of your train of thought for a moment, pulling your arms in as you tried to retain some warmth. How late was it now? You didn’t bring anything that could tell the time, but a single open-palm swipe in the air brought up a blue translucent screen in front of you, displaying a home menu with all the options you could want or need. A notification was plastered at the top of the screen, warning you that you were currently mortal, but you’d done that on purpose. You didn’t need to be reminded.

It was 2:30 am… your husband would be getting off work any time now, you thought. Transit rarely if ever still ran by now. It usually took him a while to get home after his shifts, but he’d notice you weren’t home. It wasn’t rare for you to be doing whatever random thing at that time of night, but you were almost always in the house. You didn’t really need to be outdoors this late, after all. It might raise questions since you hadn’t given notice of your absence tonight, and he knew how to call for Hatena, which would definitely give away where you were, you thought. That would cause problems.

And when you thought about it, why didn’t you just lock yourself in an isolated dimension again? Wouldn’t that be the easier answer to all this? No, then you’d still have to deal with all your thoughts and feelings, and if you did anything in there, Hatena wouldn’t be able to easily find you. Using your powers to fix your mental state came to mind too, but that wouldn’t make anything better. You hated breaking your rules, and especially with what you felt was such a selfish reason. You’d just feel incredibly bad for that, and you ultimately wouldn’t get anywhere.

Bells began to ring as the safety bars lowered in front of the tracks, and the ever so familiar train horns sounded from afar. The wind kicked up again, ruffling the grass nearby in waves, as if it were the ocean’s tide. If there was any time you were going to do this, it’d have to be now. You dwelled on it for a minute, contemplating what you really wanted to do in this situation. It wasn’t the first time you’d had these thoughts watching the train, but it was the first time you’d had these thoughts while alone at the railroad crossing, and it was the first time you felt able to go through with anything without someone being forced to watch. You felt your shoulders tense as you prepared to spring forward at the last moment...

...but your heart screamed not to, and you took a deep breath as you stepped backwards, away from the oncoming traffic. The train rattled by, the ever-so-familiar clicks on the tracks almost comforting, despite how things didn’t end as you’d planned.

Turning around and tipping the brim of your hat over your eyes, you hummed a magical tune to yourself and began on your way home, neck cranked up to look at the stars on the way. It was a song you’d come up with long ago after following the clouds on a walk one sunny day, and for reasons unknown, you suddenly couldn’t get it out of your head now; you weren’t sure it was fitting now, with how clear the sky was—it was rare to be able to see the stars so well from here—but it felt right.

For the first time in a while, you felt truly inspired to compose. Maybe you could make another song like this, and pour all your feelings from tonight into it. It would certainly be healthier than this.

You knew exactly how it'd end, too.


End file.
